2016 was the year that I quit both of my retail jobs, bought a one-way plane ticket from Ohio to Oregon and started my photography business. I had just turned 19 and I was both terrified and thrilled, knowing that if I booked a few shoots each month, I’d have everything I needed. Much thanks to the timing of Instagram’s existence, the craze behind a-frames, fog and the era of the Pacific Northwest Wonderland, my photography career started to take off within a few months.

I spent every day planning, pitching and shooting - mostly test shoots with local models to start - which quickly blossomed into setting up styled shoots with local florists, jewelry designers and bridal brands, which ultimately led to wedding bookings. I’m proud of myself for how diligently I worked to get started, and I’m grateful for the basement storage room I first lived in that cost $300/month. I never would have been able to focus on building up a portfolio every day if it weren’t for that freezing college-house-basement in downtown Portland, and I might not have slept through the night if it weren’t for my friend Kyle indefinitely lending me his Rumpl camping blanket.

With each year that passes, I remind myself of what it felt like to get up and self-motivate every day, to frantically search for my next set of short-term Craigslist roommates, to eat cereal for most meals and to work to set up the career that I hoped was possible. Here’s the majority of what I photographed and where I traveled to in 2016:

Desireé photographed in Columbus, Ohio a few days before moving

The Apartment Upstairs in Portland, Oregon

Girl covering her face, wind, ocean behind her

Becca Tapert on the Oregon Coast

A road trip to Lake Cushman in Washington

Sam Selis in Portland, Oregon, who I met at a restaurant by asking him if we could shoot sometime

A road trip to Snoqualmie Pass, Washington

Lindsay and Pat photographed at Discovery Park in Seattle, Washington

Couple in wedding clothes with flowers, pacific northwest, oregon wedding

A styled shoot with Anna Mara Flowers, Alexis & Matt in the Columbia River Gorge

wedding at cape flattery, couple kissing in pouring rain

I second-shot Phoebe & Chris’s wedding with my friend Sam Elkins while it poured rain in Cape Flattery, Washington, which is the northernmost point of the contiguous United States. Cape Flattery gets about 78 inches of rain every year: it’s lush and stunning, and your phone service will usually switch over to Canada while you’re up there.

More Northwest rain: a styled shoot with Austie Eckley, Bramble Floral and Gray Gables Estate in Portland, Oregon.

Overlooking Diablo Lake in Washington with Becca Tapert

Learning that San Francisco was a 9 hour drive from Portland (on a good day and if you left early enough) marked the start of many, many road trips down the coast.

Point Reyes will always be one of my favorite places in California. It’s been completely engulfed in fog half the times I’ve visited, and others drenched in golden sun and the dreamiest sunsets.

My first couples session in San Francisco with Hillary and Kyle

Elise Kruse photographed in San Francisco

A friend and I decided to go on a road trip starting in Portland and stopping all throughout California, Arizona and Utah, ending back in Oregon two weeks later. We mostly slept in sleeping bags in the car, occasionally finding a friend to stay with from city to city. This was my favorite thing I did that year: I met so many amazing people who are still friends of mine today. Pictured above is Amy Holt in the Hollywood Hills.

Big Sur, California

Shelby Hall in Phoenix, Arizona

KJ Pinc in Phoenix, Arizona

Madeline Alexandra in Phoenix, Arizona

Jade in Salt Lake City

Once I got back to Portland, I shot with Amy again, rose season at its’ peak

Megan and Dylan in the rain at Forest Park in Portland

One of my favorite connections was meeting my friend Kristian in Ohio in 2015: we’d been messaging on Instagram for about a year while I was finishing high school— her family lived a few hours away and she was always traveling for weddings and had recently moved to Alaska. Finally, she was back home in Ohio the last week of 2015, (my last week living there). I drove to Columbus and we spent the day shooting and drinking coffee, and she told me she was visiting Portland the following week for work. I told her I was moving there: she ended up staying with me, and I flew out to see her in Alaska in the spring. Flying over Denali on 12-seater planes is one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had, and visiting Cold Foot— population: 10, one of the few communities north of the Arctic Circle— was unlike anything I’ve ever done before or since then, honestly.

I spent the summer shooting for clothing brands around town: above is Julia Overby

This is Sam Selis photographed wearing Bridge & Burn in St. Johns

Courtney photographed for Dreamers & Lovers Bridal

Taylor for Dreamers & Lovers Bridal in San Francisco

Andrea Bartlow in Portland, Oregon

Jacki in Salt Lake City, Utah for Dreamers & Lovers Bridal

Kara Mercer for State Optical in Seattle, Washington

I second-shot this wedding with Ben Patch outside of Seattle, Washington

Immediately leaving Seattle, I drove down the coast to San Francisco, met up with my friend Sam and drove to Yosemite for sunrise. (Cannot even imagine having this kind of energy now).